Many commercial types of digging and cutting tools have been proposed over the years for penetrating and moving soil and sand. Commercially available digging and cutting tools have included shovels and trowels. Digging and cutting tools are comprised of shovels and trowels and are usually grouped into two primary types. A first type usually includes a relatively flat bottom surface and a second type usually includes upper surface with a generally concave configuration. Particularly with those shovels having a flat surface, sides may be provided extending from the flat surface to prevent the material from falling off the shovel. There are many problems with these types of digging and cutting tools.
One particular problem existing in currently available shovels is their lack of sufficient strength for penetrating rocky soils, hardened soils, soils having significant tree root infestation, as well as grassy covered soils. Often the commercially available shovels have blades that are prone to bending and can often break when the shovel is being used for digging in difficult hardened soils.
In addition to the blade bending and breaking, the tip edge of many commercial shovels can also bend and/or break when being used. A bent tip and/or breakage can result in lost time and possibly an unusable digging tool.
Hence, there exists a need for a high strength shovel having the ability to freely penetrate such hardened soils without bending or breaking. Further, there is a need for a high strength shovel blade that can easily penetrate through grassy soil as well as small to moderate sized trees with many small roots.
Still furthermore, an additional problem with most shovels is their lack of an adequate foot placement surface to rest a user's foot on. Most shovels require the user to to press down on an upper often sharp edge of the shovel blade. This thin blade edge does not allow for a stable foot placement for one's foot to rest on. The currently thin upper edge of the shovel can often result in causing the user's foot to slip off the shovel or slide forward into the dug out hole when it is being used. Additionally, the thin upper edge can result in injury to the user when their foot is slipping off while attempting to push the shovel blade downward
Furthermore, there is a need for a high strength shovel blade configuration that enables such soil penetrating ability along with providing the user with a stable and secure area on the shovel blade for a stable foot placement allowing for greater forces to be exerted on the shovel blade by a user.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art.